Description

This volume offers a comprehensive account of how the Nazis conducted the Holocaust throughout the scattered towns and villages of Poland and the Soviet Union. It covers more than 1,150 sites, including both open and closed ghettos. Regional essays outline the patterns of ghettoization in 19 German administrative regions. Each entry discusses key events in the history of the ghetto; living and working conditions; activities of the Jewish Councils; Jewish responses to persecution; demographic changes; and details of the ghetto's liquidation. Personal testimonies help convey the character of each ghetto, while source citations provide a guide to additional information. Documentation of hundreds of smaller sites—previously unknown or overlooked in the historiography of the Holocaust—make this an indispensable reference work on the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.

Author Bio

Geoffrey P. Megargee and Martin Dean are applied research scholars at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reviews

“A meticulously researched account of Nazi ghettos in Eastern Europe. The editors have mined all possible resources in many languages and presented their findings in succinct, lucid language. The production of the volume is exemplary. It will serve as the standard reference work on the subject.”
— Zvi Gitelman, University of Michigan

“This magnificent collective effort, uniting the research and expertise of leading scholars from around the world, provides a fundamental new reference for the history of the Holocaust. Anyone who wishes to understand the variety of Jewish experience in the ghettos and the scale of the destruction of a whole European world must consult this encyclopedia.”
— Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

“The most efficacious way of fighting the scourge of Holocaust denial is with the facts. No argument posed by deniers can withstand the overwhelming weight of the truth. This encyclopedia will provide a host of detail about crucial aspects of the Holocaust that cannot be found elsewhere.”
— Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving

“An indispensable source that no one individual could compile in a lifetime of research. . . . An especially useful reference work for anyone working with survivor memoirs and testimonies.”
— Christopher R. Browning, author of Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

“An outstanding work of scholarship that marks a major achievement in studies of the Shoah. Martin Dean and his expert contributors draw on archival records, survivor testimonies, and publications in countless languages to produce vivid accounts of hundreds of the Holocaust sites now known as 'ghettos.' The results both confirm and unsettle conventional wisdom. . . . The details are unforgettable: a ghetto that consisted of only two houses; an orphanage known as a 'children's cage'; Jews who went on foot from their homes to the killing center of Treblinka.”
— Doris L. Bergen, author of War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust